City in the Sea
by Kodiak Bear Country
Summary: When Rodney is killed, John has to find the will to live. Genfic.
1. Chapter 1

Title: The City in the Sea  
Author: Kodiak bear  
Pairing: None  
Rating: M, for language  
Warning: Character death; permanent  
Summary: When Rodney is killed, Sheppard has to find a way to live.  
AN: After I wrote Walk the Line, Shelly begged me to write a different kind of deathfic. One where John has to live after losing McKay, and where there are no miracles. So, Shelly – here you go. You've made me grow and learn, and may you always keep challenging me! For those of you reading Runners – just a wee interlude, this is a quick short. Thank you Linzi for the fast beta!

**The City in the Sea**

By Kodiak bear

Lo! Death has reared himself a throne  
In a strange city lying alone  
Far down within the dim West,  
Where the good and the bad and the worst and the best  
Have gone to their eternal rest.  
There shrines and palaces and towers  
(Time-eaten towers that tremble not!)  
Resemble nothing that is ours.  
Around, by lifting winds forgot,  
Resignedly beneath the sky  
The melancholy waters lie.  
- Edgar Allan Poe

**One**

"John, you're not being fair."

I ground my heels to a dead stop in the hallway, and spun around, angry. She'd followed me from the briefing and confronted me in a public place instead of the semi-private room I'd just left moments before. "What part of 'he's a dick' is being unfair?" I replied, caustically. Clearly, I knew what part.

Elizabeth didn't even flinch. She stared evenly at the few people openly watching, until they retreated into their own business again, before turning her attention back to me. "Let me see," she mocked. "The part where you called him a 'dick' or maybe the 'incompetent buffoon' and 'self-serving ass'…did I miss one, because I've got the report right here." She held up the manila folder.

"Elizabeth," I stated, more calmly then I felt. "You asked me to make an assessment, and I did."

"An assessment, John – not a character assassination," she stressed.

I was tired, and I could see she was, too. This little face to face wasn't going to get us anywhere, but I had to ask. "What do you want from me? You want me to lie – pretend he's Mr. Incredible?"

The frown marred her face, and then it melted. The folder dropped to her side, held loosely in her fingers. "John, stop expecting them to be McKay."

As the words hit, I closed my eyes. God, I was so fucking tired. McKay – she'd said his name. Not many people dared to do that to my face. When I opened them again, she was still there, and the sympathy made me want to hit something. I leaned in, close, and gritted, "I don't expect them to be Rodney; that's the problem." I didn't give her time to reply, instead, I turned quickly back the way I'd been going initially.

"You need to talk, John," she called after me.

I kept walking.

OoO

"I tried out a new scientist today."

My quarters were dark; quiet. I liked it that way lately. Peace. I needed peace, but I knew why I was short with everyone, even Ronon and Teyla. I couldn't find peace. Not in the dark, in my sleep, in my room or through the gate. "The guy sucked," I continued, conversationally. "He thought he was God's gift to every science branch known to man." I laughed at the memory of the preening kid. Fresh out of college and full of memorized facts and useless information. And fuck him for reminding me of another certain arrogant scientist who'd thought the same thing.

Invulnerable.

Slamming the basketball against the wall, I swore, "Invulnerable, my ass."

I threw it again, harder than I should've, and the ball bounced high, over my head, and I was too tired to roll off the bed and retrieve it. Didn't matter anyway. The clock showed it was past time for me to sleep, but like everything else lately, sleep was hard.

Dreams…dreams were nightmares, and I couldn't get away from them. Nothing like closing your eyes and being transported back to that instant when your best friend had his life sucked out of him. And then reliving it over and over and over again, as if the first time hadn't been enough.

When Lorne arrived with Ronon, they'd busted in the room, and found Rodney's lifeless corpse beside me. If they'd taken just one more day to find us, I wouldn't be stuck living this pain every single day. One day longer. Then again, if they'd been a day earlier, I wouldn't be living this pain, either. Better to think the former, because the latter only made me murderous.

I don't remember much about the trip back to Atlantis. The week after. I guess I went a little crazy there for a while, and Carson sedated me. I often found myself wondering if maybe I'd had the right idea after all. Go nuts, get drugged, and not have to deal with any of this.

It wasn't that I hadn't lost friends before; I had. But not like this, and not…like this.

"You know the worst part about today?" I rolled and went after the ball. Sleep wasn't gonna happen. "The kid had the guts to tell me that I had a complex about you. That no one could ever live up to the 'great McKay' and maybe it was past time for me to start accepting the status quo." I laughed unpleasantly. "Twenty-two fucking years old, if a day, and he's telling me how to handle my life."

The ball slammed against metal with a satisfying smack. Maybe I should head to the gym – but as quickly as I considered that idea, I tossed it. Too many people. Too many Ronon's and Teyla's, more to the point. I locked my doors, and kept them out, but I couldn't always hide behind locked doors. They were driving me nuts. Hell – everyone was.

'Are you okay, Colonel' or 'if you need to talk, Sheppard' better yet, the most annoying one, 'get some sleep, John'.

"Did you catch the eulogy I gave you?" It'd been damn moving. Even impressed myself. "I made Kirk proud – something about 'you were the most human human', figured if anyone earned it, you did." He'd saved my life, after all. I supposed a damn good eulogy was the least I could do.

Screw it. I threw the ball again, this time intentionally savage, and it rebounded far overhead. I pushed myself off my cot, and ignoring my boots, padded into the hall, peeking for the very people I hoped to avoid. I needed the sea tonight.


	2. Chapter 2

**Two**

The balcony was cold; salt spray didn't reach this high up, but the air was chilled from below, and the tang was on my tongue. I knew if I stuck it out, I'd taste eternity. At first, I stood at the railing, looking out at the whitecaps. There was a gusty breeze blowing over the waters and buffeting the city. After my legs began to ache from standing, I wandered to the edge of the wall that met with the railing, and slid down, sitting with my legs splayed loosely in front of me.

It wasn't as dark as it should've been. The lights of Atlantis let off a glow that bled into the water below, a painter's palette where the black mixed with yellow. The defining line between was vague and soft.

I let my head fall back against the wall, and closed my eyes. A gust of wind blew across my face, and I smiled. "I shouldn't be talking to you; people will think I'm nuts."

Truthfully, I couldn't remember exactly when I'd started, but I think it was after Beckett stopped the sedation. There was a part of me that knew I was turning into a wreck, just as they'd feared I would. But there was another part of me fighting it; clawing and shouting. I didn't want to be in this black place, this painful place.

It wasn't just that I missed McKay. He'd been my friend; that was expected. It was the way he'd died. It would always be the way he died.

"I'm going to stay out here until the sun rises," I murmured. Maybe it would light the empty pit growing inside of me. God, something needed to. I wanted to feel the warmth; see the light.

At some point, I must have dozed, but when I woke, the sun had already risen, and I was curled on my side trying to stay warm. I felt lousy, and the sunshine must have passed over me, because I couldn't feel it.

"John?"

I uncurled my body, and rolled into a sitting position, stretching protesting limbs. Knowing I probably looked as bad as I felt, I sighed. This wasn't going to be pretty. "I'm not late yet," I said. Judging from the position of the sun in the sky, it was still early, and the briefing wasn't scheduled till ten.

Her look was painful. She moved to my side, and slid down, the electronic notepad in her hands blinking 'send' on an email she'd drafted but I couldn't tell who the intended recipient was. "Why are you doing this to yourself?" Elizabeth asked. "Teyla and Ronon are worried. I'm worried."

The truth was there, on the tip of my tongue, and I almost took her open invitation… "It's only been two weeks," I deflected instead. "I'm just…having problems sleeping."

Two weeks. The first week had been in Beckett's care, the second week I'd spent on missions pushing myself to choose a replacement, despite everyone protesting. It was too soon, they'd said. Ronon had accused me with his silent stares, while Teyla had just seemed to collapse within herself.

"Problems?" she echoed. Elizabeth shook her head. "John, you look like you haven't slept in days."

Wasn't that normal? Wasn't grief supposed to throw off sleeping, eating – living patterns? Wasn't it wrong to expect life to carry on as normal when someone disappeared violently from your daily routine? I'd done that after Dex and Mitch died because I had to. I wish I knew how to do that again. I was doing my job, getting through the day, but there was a maniacal edge to me, and I knew it. And I knew it was also because of the secret I was holding.

I opened my mouth to spew any hundred of false assurances. If I couldn't tell the truth, maybe at least I could lie. But the roiling hot edge of grief surged, and I turned to the water. When a few moments passed, I knew I had control again, but I kept staring out; away. "It's only up from where I'm standing," I admitted. I wasn't denying I'd hit rock bottom. She wouldn't believe me anyway.

"I've sent Carson an email."

Her tone of voice made me frown at the water. I turned, and studied her before asking, "And?"

"I told him you're on your way to see him."

"I'm not."

She climbed to her feet, and her sadness was palpable. "Yes, you are."

I held her look, pleading without words for her not to do this, but she remained steady. I grimaced, "I just needed time." But I stood as well, surprised at how deep the pain in my legs went. Guess lying in the cold night without even a blanket had been stupid. I aborted a bitter chuckle. Stupid. He would've been the one to tell me that. The thickening in my throat was bad, and I needed to get away. "You shouldn't have done that," I got one last dig back. There was a reason I hadn't been to see Beckett since he'd released me. I always had my reasons.

Before she had a chance to reply, to tell me how this was for my own good, I strode around her, and left the balcony.

OoO

When I entered the infirmary, he was waiting. The week away hadn't changed. Hadn't erased the haunted look on Beckett's face. I debated on turning around and leaving. If Elizabeth wanted to foist this on me, make her do the dirty work.

"Lad -" Carson breathed.

"I'm here because I was ordered to, not because I have any problems I need you to treat." I laid it out, right from the get-go. I didn't want to be here, I didn't want to look at Beckett and see his haggard face. Every time I looked at him, I saw the unspoken begging for why. There was no why – it'd happened to more people before McKay; the more appropriate question was 'why not'.

"One look at you, and I know you've got problems." The harsh accusation was out of character for the usually soft-spoken doctor.

I knew my forehead was crumpling; two weeks. It'd been only two weeks. "Help…" I stuttered it out even as my brain tried to tell my mouth no. But, God, I wanted help… "Take it away," I whispered.

Beckett's nostrils flared, and his face was on the verge of crumpling along with mine. "Nobody can take it away," he croaked.

He thought I was talking about the pain; the grief. I was talking about the memory. I didn't want to close my eyes and see McKay's life being drained anymore. To watch that rugged stubborn face twisted in horror, and begin to age years in seconds. An anger so primal rose up, and twisted inside me. I could feel my breaths coming in harsh, rapid pulls. I curled my hand into a fist, and spun, punching the wall. "That's not what I meant!" I raged – because I couldn't tell him what I meant. I couldn't…I kicked at a tray of instruments, the defibrillator.

"Colonel!" Carson swore and then shouted, "I need some help in here – bring me .04 Lorazepam."

The order stilled my body. I looked at my hand in numb surprise. It was bleeding; the knuckles split open, and I didn't feel a thing. The defibrillator lay in a broken pile on the floor, the table it'd been resting on now canted over the top right edge. I swallowed down the bile over what I'd done. "I don't need it," I protested. The rage had evaporated as quickly as it'd come.

A nurse handed the hypodermic to Beckett, staring sadly at the mess. I felt the rage whisper again. Those fucking sad looks – every where I turned. Why couldn't they stop? I was a big boy, had seen death, lived with death – why the hell was this one any different? Why was this one causing me to come undone…but the reason was one I didn't like to face. It was also not something I'd share. With anyone.

Beckett approached me warily. "I'm sorry, son, but I'm going to have to insist."

"Don't," I asked, my voice cracking. I couldn't strike out at him; not him. He was McKay's friend, as much as he'd been mine. Having to see the devastation I felt mirrored in Beckett's entire being…I just wanted to leave; escape.

"We can do this two ways; willingly, and you get to lay down first, or I tackle you, and call for help to haul you into a bed…that way involves restraints, by the way."

I searched his face for any sign of weakness; any sign that I could sway him from this course of action, but all I saw was the same pain, tempered by his lack of memory of the actual death. Damn it, damn it, damn it! Closing my eyes to shut out the sight, I murmured, "You're enjoying this, aren't you?"

Beckett heard, and thought I meant him. "Bloody hell, Colonel – d'ye think I enjoy seeing you come undone? None of us does," he protested, angry.

I almost replied that I wasn't talking to him, and then realized that'd probably just mean I'd get to be his guest for even longer, and I didn't want that. It was time for damage control. I re-opened my eyes, surprised at how bright the infirmary was. "Where do you want me?" I asked, and a small part of me was eager for the shot. Eager to lose myself for a while in the drugged no-man's land, where Rodney's face wouldn't beg me to end it.

I forced my feet to go where Beckett pointed. The bed was in a corner, and after I got into the scrubs he'd handed over, not even letting me change alone, I climbed in. He took my arm in a firm grip, and swabbed it with alcohol. After he gave the injection, he breathed deep. "I'm sorry, Colonel," he said. "Sorry that we haven't been able to help you like we should've." The drug was fast acting, and the lethargy tugged at me, promising rest, finally. "But we will now…no more running; for any of us." As I drifted into the sweet embrace of darkness, I cringed at Carson's promise. I wanted to run.


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter Three**

"Start at the point when you woke up in the cell, Colonel."

Kate was perched in her chair, pulled away from the desk so that she could sit exactly opposite of me, with no barriers. I wanted barriers. She thought it helped; I thought it was claustrophobic. I'd woken from the sedative, wanting to go to my room and sleep it the rest of the way off, only to find that I was removed from duty. Beckett had apologized, his words hollow, saying he never should've put me back on before. It'd been too soon and he blamed my current condition on his own bad judgment. I'd almost confessed, then, just to rid the man of his self-recriminations.

"It's in the report," I said, dully.

She crossed her legs, and tilted her head, lips pursed in sympathy. "Actually, it's not."

Confusion reigned for a brief moment before I sighed. "I haven't written it yet." Stupid. Every mistake I made kept nailing my coffin tighter. "I forgot."

"That's understandable."

The bitter chuckle was short. "No," I said. "It's not. I meant to do it days ago."

She adjusted my file on her lap, and leaned forward. "Colonel, do you realize that you are the only one expecting yourself to jump back in the saddle, so to speak? You're the one trying to pretend you weren't captured, interrogated, had your friend and co-worker murdered in front of you because you wouldn't talk."

"I couldn't," I replied, voice hoarse.

The smile was understanding, comforting…clinical. "Of course not."

I sat in the chair, not knowing what to say. She didn't understand, couldn't. After a few moments of silence stretching tautly between us, she leaned back. "I think we've done enough for today, Colonel." Her eyebrow arched as she eyed me. "Are you taking your medicine?"

Beckett had discharged me, but only on the condition that I willingly took my happy pills. I agreed, but every day I was flushing them. They made me sick, tense, cotton-headed. "Sure," I said, but inwardly flinched because she'd read my hesitation for the lie that it was.

"John," she sighed. "It's for your own good."

"I'm a big boy, Doc. I can decide what's good for me on my own."

I was afraid she'd call Carson. Tell him I wasn't following orders, and turn me over to him, but she shook her head. "No, you can't. Not right now – but I'll let you keep your little secret, unless you fail to make progress in our sessions, am I understood, Colonel?"

"Like crystal," I replied.

Leaving her office, I headed to a place I shouldn't. People stared. Part of that was my fault. I was dressed in sweats and a t-shirt, figured what the hell, right? If I was off duty, might as well make the most of it. But instead, all I did was keep reminding everyone I ran into that McKay had died, and I was damaged. The only thing they didn't know was just how much.

When I walked into Rodney's lab, it was quiet. I'd been here before, right after Beckett had released me after the rescue. No one had touched his things yet, and I drifted over to his desk. The coffee cup was still there. I smiled ruefully remembering that last cup. We were getting ready for our mission, or rather, I'd been getting ready. McKay had gotten tied up working on a compression program. He was still trying to figure out a way to preserve more of the database in case we had to blow the city and beat a hasty retreat.

I found him typing furiously over his keyboard, the mostly full cup sitting forgotten by his side on the desk. I'd pulled up a chair, drank his coffee and waited. By the time he finished, he reached for the cup, found it empty, looked over at me and scowled. "You drank my coffee."

The smile I had was soft, and slow, and full of feigned innocence. "No, I didn't. You must've drank it while in your work-induced coma."

"I'd remember drinking my coffee."

I snorted, and folded my arms, leaning back in the chair and swiveling. "You can't even remember to be in the gateroom on time."

A look of dawning realization twisted into annoyance. "So you drank my coffee to get back at me?"

Smirking, I stood. "No, I drank your coffee because I was thirsty." I shut the cover on his laptop. "Let's go before Elizabeth sends a search party after us."

Lifting the cup now, looking at the mocha crescent moon in the bottom…I ached. If he'd been on time, or if I'd stayed, and got him another cup of fucking coffee and discussed his algorithm…if if if, it'd always be 'if'. Two letter word that held more power than all the letters in the alphabet combined.

"I couldn't do it, you know," I said to the desk. To the chair where he'd be sitting if… "I'm not sure I can wrap my mind around what that says about me -"

Obviously, he had known I couldn't do it. His eyes had found mine, bluer than I'd ever seen them before, and damn if he hadn't understood. But I didn't…son of a bitch, I didn't! I threw the coffee cup across the room, listening as the ceramic shattered into a hundred pieces, just like me.

I'd done it for Sumner, a guy I could barely stand, but I hadn't been able to do it for Rodney, a guy that I considered to be my best friend. What kind of fucked up statement did that say about me? When it mattered, I couldn't find the courage. That's what I wouldn't tell them. It was the secret I couldn't tell.

I'd told the truth to a point. We'd been captured off-world, that much everyone knew, because Ronon and Teyla had been with us. The Wraith queen had interrogated us together, but something allowed us to resist the mind probes. Rodney thought it was the ATA gene, and when we escaped, he'd wanted to have Carson look into it. When the queen had come back a third time, she'd pulled Rodney into the middle, and latched on. She only tasted at first, and I'd wondered why, when a Wraith warrior walked in and handed me my gun. McKay had been shaking, but he hadn't pleaded for his life. Somehow, staring at me, he'd found the guts he needed. Horrified, but not begging. I only wish I could've said the same.

"Tell me the location of Earth, or your friend dies," she'd sneered.

When I'd asked why they'd given me the pistol, she'd taken a little bit more of McKay and whispered seductively, "Because you fail to have the courage to do what you must – if you shoot me, your friend dies. If you do nothing, your friend dies. If you tell me where Earth is, he'll live. If you shoot him, I will lose my leverage over you, and the location of Earth, but you do not have the strength of mind to do what you should."

She had played me like a guitar, though I still didn't know what she'd hoped to accomplish with her mind games. Three warriors had kept stunners pointed on me; I couldn't take her out, because she was right. She'd drain Rodney and regenerate her damaged parts. If she kept up draining Rodney, I wasn't sure I wouldn't beg for her to stop. To give her something that would make her stop…time; we needed more time for the rescue to come. There was always a rescue. We'd done it before; Rodney had done it for me before. They wouldn't let us down, I knew it, so we only needed to hold on. If I shot McKay, and they beamed us out, then there'd be no rescue…I couldn't do it. Even as she drained him, year by year, I looked at the pistol, and back to him, and I couldn't give up on the slim hope that remained; the hope that the bullet would permanently take away.

And she'd killed him. At first, slow, then faster, as her anger over my refusal to cooperate grew. When it was over, I was stone silent, cold, and unable to even move. His body…his fucking body…was on the floor. She walked by me, and plucked the gun out of my hand before I could even think to shoot myself. "Pity," she whispered. "I rather hoped you would have the courage."

I'd finally stumbled over to his corpse, dropping next to it, and alternately pleading for a small spark of life left, and not for one. I wanted to say I was so damn sorry, but I was afraid of the accusation and pain that I might see. It didn't matter; she hadn't left even a moment of life in him.

The next day, Ronon and Lorne had blown the door, finding me sitting by the desiccated body. I know my voice had shook as I asked, "What took you so long?"

Lorne had sworn, and punched the wall. Ronon didn't say anything. He came over, picked me up, and carried me out of there, and I'd been too everything to protest. I later learned, after dropping me off on the Daedalus, he'd returned, and carried McKay's remains back on his own. They'd delivered the retrovirus to the Hive ship, and then nuked it after we were rescued. One of us, at any rate.

My eyes drifted off the shards of ceramic, and over to his cot. He'd slept in here some nights. Even as my feet moved forward, I knew I should turn around and leave. On the way, I noticed a pack on the floor by the cot. It was Rodney's field pack, and there was his laptop. Someone must have gotten it from the Wraith, also. Lorne or Ronon – didn't matter which. I lifted the laptop out of the Velcro cover, and settled on the cot, lifting the lid and powering it up in one smooth motion.

The last program was still running. The algorithm. I'd have to give this to Zelenka when I was finished. Clicking on c drive, I searched through the folders, not really sure of why I was doing it. "What did you leave for me?" I asked McKay, because just as surely as I knew Rodney liked to leave sarcastic little warning signs all over, I knew he'd left something on his computer in case he died, painfully and horribly, as he always liked to say. I only wish it hadn't proven to be true.

I found it. There under c: program files/Bad shit/Sheppard.wmv – a video file. I double clicked it, already tensing at the impact I knew was to come, and when the program opened to Rodney McKay's face too close to the video camera, I found myself instead smiling. That was him. Too close to everything.

"I think this is recording," he said, irritated. "They always make these things so complicated that a kid can do it, but a thirty something astrophysicist can't. Nothing like reality to put you in your place," he cracked.

Rodney was wearing his blue uniform – the one he'd taken to wearing after the first Siege on Atlantis. He had a bandage above his eye, and I knew right away when he'd filmed this. After he'd been submerged under the ocean. He'd almost died then, alone. But he hadn't. My plan had worked, and we'd saved him in the nick of time, but the pilot he'd been with wasn't so lucky. I'd known he was shaken. Beckett had kept him for a day afterwards, and then he'd disappeared.

When I finally tracked him down, he asked me for a game of gin rummy, and never mentioned what happened down there again. Now I knew what he'd gone and did.

He laughed nervously on the screen. "I can't believe you're watching this, I mean really, how many times do I have to evade death for it to get the point; I don't want to go. I count at least five times in the past year and a half." His face twisted into a sardonic grimace. "Guess death didn't get the point, after all."

I shook my head. Leave it to McKay to think he could dictate terms to the grim reaper. But, then again, I kind of wish it'd worked.

"So, I leave you everything."

I admit, I gaped. Everything?

"You're probably all touched and thinking 'wow' but it's not that much; due payment for putting up with me all these years. My sister gets the life insurance, but everything else, knock yourself out – not literally, but, whatever – you know what I mean."

The stupid thing is, I never even considered Rodney's will. I knew he had one; we all did. But the idea of an inheritance from him…I don't know, maybe it was part of my mental block against the entire process. I pulled my eyes away from the live McKay on the screen to stare at the things in his dead office. Everything was powered down, but his things were still out. The now broken cup, a book, a picture of us shortly after we'd arrived, standing with Carson and Elizabeth on the command deck. He was leaning across, saying something to Grodin. The reaper had been extremely gluttonous when it came to our little expedition. I was getting pretty pissed at him.

"Hey, flyboy, over here – still talking," called McKay.

I turned back to the screen, and his grin was just like I remembered. Smug, arrogant – I'd give anything to see it in person again.

"Psychic super powers," he said, waggling his hands. He paused, vulnerability crept across his face, and his hands fell. "It's actually kind of creepy how well I know you. Let me guess – you were looking at my office; searching for something of me, and full of regrets.

"Oh, don't look so crushed, it's sickening. We knew the day would come, hence, this recording. If you haven't done one for me, I'm suitably insulted from the afterworld, I assure you."

"Great; I've already got a pissed off ghost to haunt me." Because of course, I hadn't. I wasn't the king of 'plan ahead'. "It's partly your fault," I accused the screen McKay. "You always figured a way out – I never believed there'd come a time when you couldn't…or I couldn't." I had to be fair. He'd trusted in me, as much as I'd trusted in him.

"Oh, please, I'm not going to haunt you."

Was this a joke? Had he programmed his computer to respond? I lifted the laptop, looking for something.

"Put me down."

I dropped the laptop. What the fuck? I scanned the room, my level of freaked had just ratcheted to heebie jeebie.

"It's nothing special; a program to respond to actions. Actually, Radek helped me." The Rodney on the screen leaned forward in his chair and pulled a thin electronics device off the counter. "It's something we found in a lab. Interactive AI. Don't worry, I'm really dead. I didn't have time to fiddle with it much, so once this runs out in -" he looked at his watch, "five more minutes, you'll have seen the only remaining part of me." His eyes turned directly on to the monitor – right at me. The teasing arrogance fell away, and he said with too much sadness, "Remember."

The camera picture faded, and I could hear McKay muttering something about a dead battery, and then the program stopped. He was gone, again. There for a moment, I'd had him.

Peering at the small slide bar on the player, I moused over it, and reset it to halfway, thinking maybe I could get him to interact more with me, but it only played out exactly as it had before, even to the end. Must be a one-time deal. And I'd wasted it by staring at the screen in freaked surprise. Great.

I sighed, and shut the laptop, shoving it off to the side. Less than a month ago, he was here. I tugged the blanket up till I had it wrapped around my shoulders, and leaned against the wall. I was relaxing myself in time, and imagining things as they'd been back then. Nothing but the soft emergency lights were on, the ones that were always on, unless you did an override. I'd kept the main lights off. Somehow I had to put this behind me, to move on, but closing my eyes, all I saw again, was McKay aging rapidly, and holding me with his eyes as he did so.


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter Four**

When I woke up, I stretched, and bumped my head against the computer. The nightmares had left me alone, and I didn't know what to think about that. Swallowing down the dryness in my mouth, I cleared my throat, and sat up, trying to disentangle myself from the blanket.

A figure sitting near by scared me into another heart attack. "Do you realize how many people have been looking for you?" Beckett's voice wasn't angry, just resigned.

I stared at him in confusion. "Why were they looking for me?"

He leaned forward, till the shadows splayed across his face. "You missed your appointment with Kate. We tried to get you on the radio -"

"I left it in my room," I answered automatically. "You took me off duty."

Carson nodded. "Aye, I did."

Blearily, I tried to focus on the clock across the room. If they'd had people out looking for me, it had to have been a while. I scrubbed tired hands across gritty eyes, and gave up on reading the numbers. It was too dark, and my mind was still sluggish from sleep.

"How long?" Beckett asked.

"How long what?" I repeated. I knew I was missing something, but I couldn't figure out what.

"I'm the one that went to your quarters, Colonel."

I didn't get it. He was sitting there, tense, and staring at me with something that bordered…reproachful? What'd I do… "Shit," I swore, as I suddenly remembered. I'd uncapped the bottle of pills, shook out two, and dropped them in the toilet, but a call from Kate to see if I could come to an earlier appointment had distracted me…I hadn't flushed before rushing to make the new time.

Beckett repeated his question again, his voice as stony as the highlands where he came from. "How long?"

I let my head bang against the wall. Fuck. "I never took any."

"None?" he exploded. Thrusting the chair back, he stood. "Infirmary, now."

"You're just pissed because I didn't follow your orders," I replied. I had no intention of going to the infirmary. I didn't need the pills, and I wasn't going to take them. "I don't need them. I'm not depressed."

"You're sleeping in your dead friend's office, wrapped in his blanket."

I laughed wearily. "What do you think you have in the infirmary that can make this better?"

Beckett stared at me. His face shifted like a chameleon; anger, sadness, acceptance. He turned his head away, and I watched as his face fought off the emotions, and failed. When he spoke, it was shaky. "He would've wanted me to take care of you; to see you through this."

Raggedly, I got to my feet, and put an awkward hand on his shoulder. "You have," I said, sincere. "But pills aren't the answer. Put me back on duty – I'm ready now, and I need the distraction."

"Kate disagrees."

He'd recovered some semblance of control, but I could still see the glassiness of his eyes reflecting in the poor light in the room. I didn't want to fight with him, but I couldn't keep on like this. Seeing Kate during the day, pretending I had things to do, when in reality all I ever did was think about those days on the Hive ship. "I need something to keep my mind off it," I all but begged. "She thinks I need a solution; what I need is life." The stillness of limbo was killing me.

Beckett shook his head, but he was staring at me thoughtfully. Finally, he released a long sigh. "It's against my better judgment, but I'll tell Elizabeth you're clear."

"Thank you," I replied earnestly, resisting the urge to run out of the room before he changed his mind. I started to walk away, but stopped when I realized he wasn't following. "You coming?"

"No," he said, voice so soft it could've floated away with a whisper of a breeze. "I think…" he looked around at the room, lingered for a moment on the mess from the broken cup, before returning back to me. "I'm going to look around for a bit."

"Yeah," I said. I understood. "I'll see you later, Doc." I left him behind, knowing he was hurting, in a lot of ways just as much. The only difference was the lack of baggage from the way Rodney had died. If I hadn't had that to carry around, maybe I wouldn't be floundering, barely keeping my head above the water. Maybe.

OoO

"Doctor Z!" I called, cupping my hands around my mouth. "Pack it up!"

The first mission since I'd told Elizabeth who was going to be McKay's replacement. I'd resisted the suggestion. Had fought loudly over it with Elizabeth, and even though we'd been in her office, everyone had overheard. I felt bad about that; bad that the rumor mill implied that my problem was with Zelenka, when that could've been the farthest from the truth. The truth was I didn't want Zelenka to die. I didn't want to speak at his eulogy, or watch him get desiccated by the Wraith, or any other method of dying.

She'd finally told me to shut up; that alone startled me into being quiet. Then she'd told me if I wanted to go through that gate ever again, I'd accept Radek on my team, and I'd damn well better make him feel welcome.

When Radek had walked into the gateroom, kitted out with vests, and a thigh holster, I'd almost turned around and walked out of there. He reminded me, painfully, of a certain other scientist. The same nervous walk, awkward fit of gear, and uncomfortable feel with the gun. He'd smiled tentatively and said, "I am ready, Colonel Sheppard."

Feeling Elizabeth's stare on my back, I'd patted him on his shoulder and said, "Looks like it, Doc." I tried to smile reassuringly, while inside, I was falling apart.

The mission was a cake walk. In and out. I knew Elizabeth had planned it that way. Ronon was impatient, but awkward. Teyla was just sad. It'd been a month, and none of us were over it. I tried to make small talk about Teyla's trip to the mainland; about Ronon's hair cut, but all of it died with grunts and short answers. Down deep there was a part of me that wondered if they'd lost the faith in me as their leader. Did they still trust me to get them home alive? The funny thing is, the real question was for me. Did I trust me to get us home alive? The answer wasn't one I wanted to think about.

The screams are what made me whip my head around, and sent my heart pounding. Wraith! It was the first thing through my mind, and the last thing I wanted to see. Luckily, it wasn't. But what it was, turned out to be not so good, either. Radek was running full bore towards me, and right on his ass was the biggest animal I'd seen so far in the Pegasus galaxy. It had to have been the size of a horse, but the fangs that I could see even at this distance made me doubt it was wanting to ask Radek to hop on up and take a ride.

I quickly got my P90 up, safety off, and scattered a few rounds above Radek's head. The animal slowed, uncertain, but when Zelenka stretched the distance between them to what it must have deemed too far, the beast sped up again.

There was no way in hell I was going to go through that gate with anything less than the number we'd left with. I started running towards Radek, and shouted as loud as I could, "Duck, Doc!" When he did, I riddled the animal with my entire clip.

Everything would've been just fine then, if it hadn't been for the fact that Junior apparently had a mom nearby. I picked Doctor Z off the ground, and turned us towards the gate. He was shaking like a tree in hurricane force winds – that shaking that comes from not knowing which way to bend. I shouted at Ronon to dial it up, and then I was flying through the air.


	5. Chapter 5

AN: Just a quick note thanking nebbyjen, linzi and kylen for being my beta's and helping me improve this fic! Also, thank you guys for reading, I know deathfics are...eeek...just painful, and I hope I've done Rodney's death justice by making this incredibly painful (if that makes any sense)! There are 9 parts total it looks like, so I have all done but the last. It should be posted tonight, barring any unforseen catastrophes. (hey, at my house, you never know.)**  
**

**Chapter Five**

Waking up was kind of a surprise. When the impact rattled me down to my teeth, and I flew higher than I'd ever done outside of a machine, I'd really rather thought that was the end. Not to say I'd wanted to die, but it might be true to say I didn't want to live.

A beeping sound speeded up, and my mind processed the uncomfortable feeling of EKG pads stuck in my chest hair. The last time I'd woken to those, I'd promised Beckett if anyone ever stuck them on me again without first shaving a small spot, I'd mutiny. He'd humored me, and apparently that was all he did, because I could feel the sticky glue over hair. Taking them off was going to hurt.

"John?"

I moved my eyes, then realized they were still closed. Huh. I opened them, blinked at the bright light until my eyes got the message, and adjusted. Teyla was leaning over me, and she was studying my face to the point where I wondered if I'd lost part of it.

"What?" I asked, trying to move my hand up to check, just in case.

A worried frown marred her face. "You should not have missed the presence of the other animal."

My hand hadn't moved, and it took a minute for me to realize it was because of the sling. There wasn't a cast, instead, some kind of temporary splint, and if I folded my chin to my chest really flat, I could see the edges of deep purplish-black bruising. I knew it should be throbbing, but I wasn't really feeling a thing. "I missed?" I said.

The frown deepened. "Do you remember what happened?"

I closed my eyes again, trying to reverse back through memories; I'd taken Radek through the gate. Cake walk. Time to go…oh, yeah, there we were. I'd emptied my ammunition clip into Junior, and been surprised by Momma. If I hadn't been higher than a kite on whatever the drug de jour of the day was, it would've bugged me a lot more that Teyla was right. I should've caught the presence of the other one.

The sudden spike of fear was accompanied by an increase in beeping. I saw alarm overcome the frown, and then Beckett was running up, his eyes searching me from toe to head. "Radek?" I demanded. I tried to see in the infirmary, but all I saw were empty beds, and that made the beeping even faster.

Beckett's face blanched when he realized what I thought. "No, no – he's fine. You took the hit, Colonel," he explained, fumbling with the heart monitor, until finally, swearing about bloody machines and smacking it hard, it emitted a last whining beep before falling quiet. "Radek is with Elizabeth and Ronon doing the debrief."

I nodded, trying to relax my breathing, and calm down. God, there for a moment I'd thought –

"I should go," Teyla interrupted my thoughts. "Rest, John."

I watched as she left, wanting to call her back, but not being able to. She was bothered by what'd happened, and I saw it written all over her. Did she think I screwed up intentionally, or that I was losing the ability to do my job? And really, was either one of those options better than the other?

There was a deep need to get out of here; I needed to be alone. I needed to talk to Rodney, and God knows, if I did it here, with the built-in audience, it'd be a long, long time till I walked through that gate again.

Beckett breathed deep, and shook his head. "Nothing major was damaged. Broken arm, deep bruises – you'll live," he told me. "I'll release you tomorrow if you improve, but the swelling in that arm has to go down before we can put a permanent cast on. You'll be off duty for about six weeks."

Six weeks? I moved my head in frustration on the pillow. Six weeks. I had to blink hard to avoid embarrassing myself. I'd hoped that getting back into a routine, going on missions, doing my job – hoped for it to keep me going, keep me busy, keep my mind off of what I wanted to run away from. I thought I was actually pulling it off…till now. The drugs were blunting everything, and I still felt that crawling panic resurfacing.

A hand on my shoulder drew my eyes upward, and I met Beckett's gentle look with a scared one of my own. His smile was bittersweet. "I know it's not fair," he admitted.

This new openness between us was hard for me. I'd held my emotions tight, sharing little, but Rodney had slithered a way in, and I'd found myself talking to him more than anyone else. We had late nights in front of a movie, in his lab over coffee, lunch, campfire on another world. It wasn't much – talking about how incredibly shitty it was that Abrams and Gaul had died because of us. Rodney confessed that Dumais' death had sent him to a new 'freaked out' place. I'd confessed Chaya had just plain freaked me out. We talked about what a bastard Kolya was, and how best to plan a practical joke on Beckett. Ronon's dreadlocks had been the source of more than one idea, but neither one of us was ready to risk it. Ronon was like the tamed bear, and McKay's idea that entailed sharp scissors was considered for less than a minute, and then we both said life was better lived with all our parts intact. We hadn't found the conversations to have, the conversations had found us.

But ever since that day when Carson had found me in Rodney's lab, a wall had been broken. The mortar cracked, gaps exposed, and I found myself trying to be there for him as much as he was trying to be there for me, because he was right. McKay would expect us to do that. We'd both been his friend.

I motioned towards the cup of water on the table. After he brought it over, and helped me drink without wearing it; figures that the arm I broke was my right; I tried to think of a reply to what he'd said without sounding awkward and emotional. "Fair," I muttered, finally. "I think fair was lost somewhere en route to Atlantis from Earth."

He didn't even reply, just did that thing where a person doesn't really laugh or snort or chuckle, but does a half-laugh, and yet it said it all. "Go back to sleep, son. When you wake up again, we'll see about getting you released to your room." He adjusted the bag of fluids running into my hand, and flipped the heart monitor on again, before leaving back to his office.

I closed my eyes, willing the drugs to escort me back into a world without memories. Thankfully, the drugs did their job.

OoO

Beckett was true to his word, and I was discharged to my room with orders to stay in bed, take my pills (and when he said that everything got all awkward and clumsy because the 'flushing incident' was still too fresh for both of us). I'd given him a twisted grin and said, "My arm hurts bad enough for me to be a good little boy and take my medicine." He'd still looked skeptical, but thrust the bottle of pills in my hand and warned he'd be by to check on me tonight. His hovering almost made me feel warm inside again, but before it could gain significant radiance, Ronon arrived.

Initially, I thought it comforting that he'd come to see me. There'd been a painful distance between us since McKay's death. I hadn't been able to ask him if he blamed me; I was afraid of what he might say. But then Carson had nodded his head slightly at Ronon, and the big guy had come over and started gathering my clothes, pills and papers. "I don't need a bodyguard," I accused, softly, because I wasn't sure my headache could withstand loud voices.

Ronon shook his head at my stupidity. "You've got one arm, Sheppard. Stop acting like a baby."

"Oh," I replied, feeling stupid.

We walked in silence to my quarters, and once in there, I was surprised by how terrible I felt. My arm was throbbing in its temporary cast, my head ached like I'd come off a weekend binge of booze and coffee. I'd gotten a really big bruise on my stomach, right about where my appendix was, and now the pain there had me almost bent double.

The door opened, and Ronon moved in ahead of me, setting my things on my desk. He fluffed the pillow, pulled back my blankets, and went into the bathroom where I heard water running. Smiling weakly, I was surprised at how much it meant to have someone do those simple things for me. Rodney used to. We took turns; if it wasn't me recovering, it was him. Our job wasn't up to OSHA standards. But McKay had also made me laugh. His insults quick-witted and sure. I didn't realize I was staring at the bed until Ronon was back with a glass of water and observed, "It's just a bed."

I shook my head. "No – it's not," I said, crawling in, and being careful of my arm.

His brooding forehead wrinkled at my cryptic statement, but he set the water down, and shrugged a hand at it. "Water, take your pills like Doc ordered. Do you need anything else?"

Funny. That question coming from anyone else would've seen solicitous. Coming from Ronon, it almost seemed like a dare. "I'm good," I assured him.

He hesitated, and I'm not sure if it was because he didn't believe me, or if there was something he wanted to say. Finally, he said, "Okay." He turned, and headed towards my door. It wasn't far, so my window of opportunity to ask was shrinking rapidly, but I wanted to ask if he still trusted me to lead – blame it on the pills making me vulnerable, sappy…stupid.

When the door opened, and he stepped through, all I managed to do was let out the deep breath I'd taken. When it shut, I shook my head again at my cowardice. I needed to know what that wall between us meant. Sure, I'd always kept a distance, friendly, but not open. Ronon and I had never sat around the fire, him listening as I admitted to having sex at thirteen with Jamie Rogers, the hottest girl in eighth grade. Part of the reason was probably because Ronon would've snickered and said he killed his first Wraith at thirteen; what took you so long?

"Rodney," I said to the air. "This sucks."


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter Six**

I didn't sleep well, even with the pills. They weren't as effective as the intravenous drugs. Late into the night, I got up, surprised to find that Carson must have come while I had managed to sleep. There was a tray with a sandwich, and some kind of juice. I wasn't hungry, but ate it anyway.

Padding silently into the bathroom, I studied myself in the mirror, surprised at the bruises on my face. I hadn't realized they were that big. I ran the water till it was too hot, and juggling the rag, wetted it and squeezed out the excess water till it was steaming but not dripping. I washed away the sweat before letting it drop into the sink. I wandered back into my room. It was too quiet, and I searched for my computer, opening it and starting a playlist of favorites. Rodney had gotten me hooked onto this format over a regular cd player. He'd said the way I was listening to music was outdated and I needed to join the twenty-first century. I'd grinned and pointed to my poster, reminding him that my music tastes tended to run late twentieth century anyway. He'd won me over when I found every album Cash had ever made loaded on to my computer.

"You never did tell me where you got the files," I said. "Nefarious dealings, McKay – never knew you had it in you till then."

The basketball was in a corner, and I bent to pick it up with my left hand, but the bruise on my stomach bitched, and I only made it half-way before the pain stopped my progress. I glared at the ball, and then at the pajama bottoms I was wearing. I couldn't get dressed without help, and there wasn't anything in my room to keep me occupied.

Johnny sung about a gun, and I decided if I had to stay in this room for another minute, I was going to find one myself. Pajama bottoms and gray t-shirt would have to suffice for uniform of the day. I looked at my feet and figured socks would do, also. I liked to go bare foot, but when I'd left the infirmary it'd seemed stupid to put boots on for the short walk to my quarters. Beckett had helped with my socks and I hadn't bothered to take them off when I got back.

I left my room, against direct orders by one Carson Beckett, CMO of Atlantis, and headed for Rodney's lab. The door opened, and the first thing I noticed were the boxes. Someone had been in here packing up his things. The spike of anger at what felt like a violation made me almost shake. They couldn't pack it up; couldn't take away the only place where I could still feel him. Jaw grinding, I spun around, and headed back into the hallway.

By the time I found Elizabeth, my anger had surpassed even righteous indignation, and fallen instead into desperation. That was the only explanation for why I confronted her in a too public command center.

"Whoever is packing Rodney's office stops now," I ground out.

She showed surprise at my appearance, then sympathy. "John – we need the room. I had to."

"We need the room?" I repeated, incredulous. "Elizabeth, we've barely scratched the surface of the city!"

"The location matters," she replied, trying to be understanding while bearing the brunt of my frustration. She turned to her office, and said, "Let's talk about this privately."

"No," I snarled. "I'm fine just where I am. I don't want that room changed."

"It's too late, John." She stepped near, reaching for my arm, to pull me willing or not, into her office. "His lab's been reassigned to another scientist."

I stubbornly held my ground. "Who?" I grated, thinking we'd see about lab assignments.

Instead of answering my question, she evaded. "I realize this isn't easy for you – it's not easy for any of us -"

"Who?" I repeated, lower and more forcefully.

A diplomat Elizabeth might be, but even she had her limits, and the recent losses hadn't done anything to help maintain her patience. I knew I'd gone to far when her eyes sparked, and her face became unreadable. "Colonel, in my office, now," she ordered.

I opened my mouth to protest, again, but she held me in an icy glare, and repeated, "Now," with enough force that it got through my wrecked emotions. I realized everyone was staring. I felt the anger leave me, boneless and washed, and I followed her. Once we were both inside, she shut the door, and indicated the chair across from her desk. "Sit down before you fall down," she snapped, a mixture of her own anger and annoyance surfacing.

After I did, she sat on the corner of her desk, close to me. "Do you think I wanted to order his lab packed?" she finally asked.

It didn't matter what she'd wanted; what mattered is what she did. "You can't do this -"

"To you," she finished. Her head jerked with frustration, and she pulled a file off the desk, and almost threw it at me, before her eyes followed back to the sling around my right arm. The file stayed in her hands. "This is Kate's report."

I stayed silent, motionless.

"She says you're having a hard time with McKay's death -"

"I didn't realize I was supposed to have an easy time with it."

Her lips tightened, but she didn't comment, instead continued on the early vein, "She also believes you're hiding something about what happened in that cell."

My heart slowed, my breathing stopped. I felt the tightness in my chest, and wondered if it was possible to have a heart attack from fear. Haunted – I was chased by ghosts of memories; the harsh reality had faded to be replaced by exaggerated torments of the truth. In my memory, McKay begged me to do it. In my dreams, he cursed me for not doing it. I swallowed, and said, "I don't know what you're talking about."

She uttered a hollow laugh. "Have you looked in the mirror lately?"

My face twisted in irritation. "Elizabeth, I was ran down by an oversized Bambi; I'm allowed to look like shit."

"That's not what I meant and you know it," she accused.

Of course I did, but what do you say when you're barely holding it together? Sorry for my mental breakdown, find me a nice padded room with a view? I didn't say anything at all.

The sympathy was back in full force. "Rodney's death was hard on everyone, but hardest on you, because you were there. You thought your team was inviolate – invulnerable," she whispered.

I think a part of me broke; right then and there.

"You weren't – aren't. We need…I need you to pick up the pieces, and move on. Rodney would be the first one telling you to get over it, and you know that."

He would. I knew it, even as she said it, but that didn't make it any easier. Why'd Rodney have to be the one that died in that cell? The queen had gotten it all wrong. She should've taken me to get McKay to talk. Rodney would've given in, and said something, and then we would've had another day, and the rescue would've come in time, and we'd both be home nursing our psychological wounds.

My mouth almost stuttered that I couldn't, but I rescued myself in time. I glanced away, and stared at the solid wall of glass that I'd destroyed not long ago. Remembered how worried Rodney had been, and his bumbling attempts at trying to be there for me while I mutated into something non-human.

Elizabeth stood. She leaned over me, reaching for my good arm, and tugging me to my feet. I allowed it, like an automaton. "Go back to your room, John," she said wearily.

"I don't want to," I managed to protest; to finally speak up.

She seemed a lot older, I realized, as she shook her head. "We do a lot of things we don't want to."

My feet carried me to her door, like a pair of traitors, but the question on my lips resurfaced, and I asked, "Who?" again.

Her sadness seemed to have no bounds, as she answered this time, reluctantly. "Doctor Zelenka."


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter Seven**

I had two choices; back to my room, or back to McKay's lab. I didn't do either one. When I walked on to the balcony, I was surprised to see Ronon leaning over the railing. He almost looked ready to jump, and I felt an unpleasant lurch in the pit of my stomach. "Whatcha' doing, big guy?" I asked, glib.

He turned around, jerked his head to acknowledge me, and turned back to the water. He didn't say anything, just stood, still and silent. Since he didn't tell me to go away, I took his silence as an invitation, and approached him. It was too cold for pajamas and t-shirt, but there was something in Ronon's stance that told me to stay.

"If you don't want me -" I started to say, feeling weird about imposing on the guy.

"Didn't say that," he grunted.

"You don't say a lot," I countered. Ronon had never been one for long conversations, but his normal taciturn self had grown even more so, if that were possible.

He scanned the blue-green waters and shrugged. "Not much to say."

Taking the plunge, I said, "Look, if you've got a problem with me – we can get you on another team…" It was the last thing I'd wanted, but seeing him like this was eating at me like acid on metal. On one side was the hole from Rodney's death, on the other, the burden of how it affected everyone around me. Soon there wouldn't be anything left.

He shifted his gaze to me, puzzled. "I don't have a problem with you."

"Then what's with the avoidance lately?"

I mistakenly leaned against the railing, and my sling-contained arm compressed between the beams and my chest, causing hot pain to flash. I quickly pulled back, as if burned, and then tried to cover it up by shifting to lean with my good side.

He'd noticed, I could see it in his eyes, and I was surprised by the look that I recognized. Guilt. "You couldn't have prevented that moose thing from running me down," I said. Ronon had been across the field, getting ready to the dial the DHD like I'd told him to. Teyla had been the one standing near me, the one that had pointed out that I should've realized there was another nearby.

"I'm not stupid," he retorted, in a way that implied perhaps I was.

I scowled. "Looked like you might be doing something stupid to me," I implied. "You were awfully close to the edge."

I'd seen Ronon in a lot of situations. Angry, defiant, quiet, raging – but now was the first time I'd seen him hurt. It was physical - tangible, and I felt if I reached out into the air between us, I could grab it, hold it. "And you haven't thought of doing anything…stupid?" he asked, his words tilting on an edge.

I thought back to the time right after. I tilted my head, rolling it slightly because of how uncomfortable I suddenly felt. I felt the muscles in my jaw tense, and I cleared my throat. "Maybe…people do…stupid things, sometimes. But, I didn't."

His eyes were empty, lost. I'd never seen him come so undone before, not even when we'd stood amongst the ruins of Sateda. "I've lived too long," he muttered. "I wasn't meant to be alive still. If it wasn't for Ford, I'd be dead now."

I searched his face, trying to figure him out. "What's your point?" I finally asked outright, sick of playing word games.

He sniffed, something I'd seen him do not from a cold, or allergies or anything else. It was something he did when he was upset, angry, pissed. "If I can't do my job, I shouldn't be here."

Confusion covered me, and I didn't like it. "When you haven't you done your job?"

His eyes slid away, returning to the churning water below. I saw the stiffness in his shoulders, the white knuckled grip on the rail. Narrowing my eyes, I tried to think back. He'd already said it wasn't about that animal sending me air born, so what was it? We had only been on a few missions since McKay had died, and the distance had been there from the beginning – from the first mission post Rodney McKay – son of a bitch.

I was stupid, and not stupid as in suicidal stupid, but stupid as in just plain outright stupid. My words in the cell flashed back with painful alacrity. "What took you so long," I murmured, closing my eyes as I realized what I'd unintentionally done. I opened them again, and shook my head, saying, "I didn't mean it like that -"

Ronon pulled a flask from his duster, unscrewed the lid, and tossed back a mouthful of whatever it was. Wiping his mouth, he held it out to me. I looked at it longingly, but remembered the pills Beckett had given me, and the instructions, which included no alcoholic beverages. "No thanks," I replied, frustrated.

He shrugged, recapped it, and tucked it back in his coat. "Doesn't matter," he said, referring to what I'd said earlier.

Of course it mattered. All of it did. What a complete FUBAR my life was becoming, along with everyone else's. All this time I'd thought Ronon's problem was with me, and now I knew it wasn't with me, so much as, because of me. I don't know why I found that so surprising; I would've been doing the same if our positions had been reversed. If it'd been him and McKay in that cell, and I'd seen the corpse and the devastation in the other. Hell, I was a walking reminder to Ronon and…Lorne. Oh, hell. I hadn't even seen the guy since that day. I resolved to find out how he was doing later, when I was…up to talking to him. To telling him I hadn't meant what I'd said.

No, that wasn't true. I had meant it…but not in a way where I wanted them to blame themselves…or did I? Honesty was a real bitch to face, and it made me feel a little sick when I realized that I had wanted them to hurt back then. I'd said those words because that's how I'd felt. What the fuck had taken them so long? I'd never gotten an answer.

I was surprised at the anger that was there again, and when I looked up, wished I had never come out here, because Ronon was watching me, and I knew he knew. His face twisted, and he asked, "Sure you don't want me to be…stupid?"

"Knock it off," I snarled. "I was wrong, okay? I was mad, hurt, pissed – that's all. We say things we don't mean. It happens, and damn it, Ronon, if you go and do something stupid, I'll kill you myself."

We'd all screwed up on that mission. Made rookie mistakes by allowing ourselves to be split up when the Wraith attacked. Even Teyla had been fooled. The difference between Teyla and the rest of us was that she had her peace, and we didn't. She'd long ago learned to deal with life and death. I'd realized that about her in our first year. She cared, she resisted, she fought – but all with a calm acceptance that what happened, happened.

"You're not to blame," I pointed out, trying to offer him absolution. "I was wrong."

He shook his head, not much, just enough to let me know that he thought I was full of shit. "Tell you what," he said, looking at me. "I'll stop blaming myself when you stop." I read the hopelessness in his eyes. He knew what I'd say. I turned away from him, hating everything. God, this sucked. For reasons unknown to him – reasons I wasn't willing to confess, I'd never stop blaming myself. I regarded him with regret, bucket loads of regret. "Looks like we'll be blaming ourselves for a long time," I replied, matching his hopelessness.

Ronon's mouth twitched into an almost smile, and he turned back to the water. "Guess so," he agreed.

At least Ronon worked at a level I could understand. "Just so long as neither one of us does something…stupid," I agreed. "You won't, right?" I shivered, and it made my arm ache in the splint. I turned and looked longingly at the door, but I wasn't ready to leave yet. I needed to know that Ronon wasn't going to throw himself over the edge when I left, or jump into a culling beam, or anything else equally…stupid.

"You shouldn't be out here," Ronon said, reading my body language. "Doc would be pissed if he knew."

"Yeah," I agreed, not moving. He hadn't answered my question, and with a sick feeling in my gut, I realized he wasn't going to.


	8. Chapter 8

AN: Okay, if you don't have a hanky, get one!**  
**

**Chapter Eight**

I'm not sure how long we stayed out there, but when Beckett arrived, looking for me…yeah, he was pissed. Something about pneumonia, and bloody fool, and infirmary. I think he said something about 'not losing you, too' but I tried to pretend I didn't hear it. The thing of it was, Ronon had never assured me he wouldn't do it. Two could play his game, though. I had resources.

And speaking of those resources, I let Beckett harass me off the balcony, waving sheepishly with my good arm to Ronon. He'd raised an eyebrow and his look said 'I told you so' without saying it aloud for Beckett to hear, and the tightness along his jaw line made it clear to me that he hadn't forgotten my question, either. I sensed he wasn't going to do anything drastic now, but then again, I could be wrong, so – "Doc, Ronon's not feeling so hot."

We were on the other side of the door now, and had some privacy. I paused before saying more because I knew where I was going wasn't going to be welcome by one certain Satedan, and as much as I might be inclined to have a death wish, that wasn't what I'd had in mind. "He's contemplating doing something…stupid."

I couldn't say suicide. And wasn't that…stupid. I almost laughed, but caught myself in time. The look of shocked displeasure on Beckett's face kept me on the straight and serious. "Stupid?" he echoed, but recognition was sliding in. He narrowed his eyes at me, and slowly nodded. "Aye…I've been worried…" He released my hand, and tapped the radio. "Major, I need you to find your way to the balcony off the command deck."

I couldn't hear the other side, but I tensed at the knowledge that he was talking to Lorne. I wondered what kind of conversations they'd been having behind my back. Beckett had been worried, and yet, he hadn't come to me about it. Ronon was a member of my team, and no one had confessed their fears about him possibly being suicidal?

The rest of the trip to my quarters was spent in silence, on my part. I was brooding, Beckett was lecturing. About following directions, and how a callous disregard for my life wasn't going to win me a medical clearance for duty any time soon, and what the bloody hell had I been thinking (that last bit was paraphrased). I think I counted at least five bloody's, three idiot's, and one wee – the wee being something about a shot of antibiotics to stave off the inevitable infection.

That was when I drew the line. "I don't have pneumonia," I barked. We'd arrived in my room, and he was trying to tuck me in like a mother hen.

"You'll be bloody well fortunate if you don't get it!" he retorted. "It's winter here, and you were standing on the balcony in your pajamas!" He muttered something else about fools again under his breath.

"I didn't know doctors could transfer hypochondria on to their patients," I grouched.

It was probably the wrong thing to say, because Carson's face grew darker than a thundercloud and he snarled, "It's not hypochondria; it's bloody common sense. I've got you on steroids to help with the inflammation, and steroids lower a body's immune reactions!"

"How the hell was I supposed to know that?" I matched his anger now with my own. A person could only take being lectured to for so long, especially when their pain medicine wore off.

He grabbed the prescription bottles from the nightstand, and shook out two from one, and one from the other. He handed the three pills to me, and after I'd popped them in my mouth, gave me the water. When I swallowed, he said coldly, "Because your doctor ordered you to bed, and nowhere else."

I sensed that this was deeper ground than I'd thought. We'd played these parts before, but never with this degree of heaviness, or emotion. "I'm sorry," I said, and I meant it. I could feel the hurt in him now – the hurt the anger had been masking.

His hands were shaking as he took the empty glass, and set it on my nightstand. He turned quickly, and I could tell his shoulders were trembling. Carson had never been stoic. Emotions overwhelmed him easily; they always had.

But I still needed some answers. "How long have you been watching Ronon – and why didn't you tell me?" I asked. I used my good elbow to lean up, "It kind of sucked finding him leaning over the edge of the railing like that."

Beckett seemed to lose himself in his thoughts, and his face remained hurt, and scrunched. He came to a decision, and pulled my chair closer, sitting in it. "Let me ask you instead, how long have you been contemplating doing the same?"

I scooted back till I hit the wall, and could take the weight off my good elbow. "This isn't about me," I countered.

He shook his head sadly. "You're wrong. It's all about you."

What'd that mean? That I was self-absorbed, or the cause, or what? I tried to form a reply, but nothing sounded right in my head.

Looking up at the ceiling to gather his composure, Carson started talking. "After Ronon brought you to the infirmary aboard the Daedalus…" he drifted off, shaking his head from the memory. He met my stare and smiled tightly, "You were a mess, Colonel."

Nothing like the truth, I guess. "I'd watched my best friend die."

Beckett nodded. "Yes, you did. You went a wee bit crazy there for a while. We couldn't get you to calm down, listen or do anything." He folded his arms, as if to protect himself from the memory. "Ronon had to restrain you a few times in that first week. You said some pretty…rough things."

My memory of that first week after was vague. I'd been doped up, and when I tried to remember events, all I had were flashes of me begging Rodney to stay. I twisted my neck uncomfortably. "I don't…remember."

His look was gentle sadness. "No one blames you, son. But you had your own demons to wrestle; you weren't in a place to take on anyone else's."

I felt my throat closing up. I'd been a fool. Just like Beckett accused me of being, but not the kind he meant. "I'm sorry," I whispered.

Surprising me, Carson rose, and sat on the edge of my bed, pulling my head to his shoulder. His arms enveloped me in a hug so tight it made my arm ache even more, but I couldn't complain, or pull away. I cried. I cried like I hadn't done since I was a baby. I couldn't figure out how to get through this. Rodney was dead, Ronon on the verge of suicide – broken souls, from the loss of one man. But it was the loss of my best friend, and nothing would be the same ever again.

When the storm passed, he made his way to my door, but before he left, he turned back towards me, and his face was so raw, I knew we were scarred for life. "I've lost one dear friend," he said. "Lost more patients than I care to remember. I'm not going to lose another because of stupidity. Stay in that bed till I tell you to get up."

"Okay," I assured him, still wiping off my swollen face, and feeling acutely aware of this horribleness in the air; the meaning of stupidity. "No more stupidity." I was sick to death of the word.

When he left, I couldn't believe how screwed up I was. I hadn't seen this break down coming even when it'd been right in front of my face. Renewed guilt washed over me, and I closed my eyes. "See that, McKay? That's why we needed you here."

I breathed in, deep, until my lungs couldn't hold anymore, and held it for a moment, before expelling it, trying to regain some measure of equilibrium. "Radek is moving in to your office. I guess if someone has to, I'd rather it was him. At least you fought with him as much as you fought with me."

Silence replied, and I clenched my left hand into a fist. I couldn't roll over on my right side like I preferred. I debated on getting up and playing a game of solitaire, but the pills were finally kicking in, and I was just tired enough to not want to move, but not enough to fall asleep. I stared at the ceiling. "Rodney – I bet you're impressed as hell at how badly I'm falling apart without you here." He'd always said I'd be lost without him. I suspected even he never realized just how true those words had been.

My playlist was still queued, and stretching my left hand, I was able to hit the play button. Johnny started singing about how he hurt himself today. I rolled back on to my pillow, and figured Johnny had it right. The song continued, and the words hit with such force that I broke all over again.

_What have I become, my sweetest friend…everyone I know, goes away, in the end…_

I sat abruptly, and savagely swept the laptop off the nightstand. God damn it…God. Damn. It.


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter Nine**

The next few days I passed in isolation, following Beckett's orders to the letter. I stayed in bed, played solitaire, and started thinking seriously about asking again for those happy pills. I talked to Rodney, wished my arm wasn't broken so that I could play my guitar, and read War and Peace. I said the right things when Kate came by, her mandatory visit because of the 'stupid' comment Ronon and I had admitted to, even if it was indirectly.

When Radek came by, I almost told him to go away. He was standing outside my door, his hands clenched nervously by his side, and he asked, "Colonel, may I come in?"

This was a conversation I didn't want to have. I'd heard the rumor mill. Some said I hated Radek, others that I resented him, while the latest said that McKay and Radek had been close and I'd been jealous. Everyone had a rumor for whatever sordid scenario they hoped was going on; but all of them were wrong.

Radek made me hurt. And not physically, but down deep, because he lived and worked in Rodney's lab now, and because he'd worked with Rodney, fought with Rodney, known Rodney just as much as I'd known him. Their relationship mirrored ours, except that Radek still had the gilded innocence of not having watched McKay murdered.

I wanted to tell him to go away, that I wasn't ready for this conversation, but the look on his face stilled my tongue, and I moved aside, gesturing for him to come in.

He walked in, and didn't even cringe at the mess. I had plates, cups, papers, scattered everywhere. I hadn't felt much like picking up. "What's on your mind, Doc?"

"I wanted to tell you in person," he said, his accent thicker than normal.

I waved at the chair, sweeping the papers to the floor. "Sit," I ordered. He looked on the verge of collapse.

But Radek shook his head. "No," he smiled briefly. "I won't be long. I just…" he stumbled, and took a shaky breath, before rushing on, "I'm resigning from your team, Colonel."

"What?" I asked. It came out harsher than I meant, and I felt a surge of guilt when he winced. "I'm sorry," I apologized, but I was still annoyed. I took my free arm, and pushed him into the chair. "You'll be here for a while," I told him. "Now – start explaining."

He released the breath he'd been holding, and blew the air out his cheeks. "Colonel, I'm not Rodney McKay. I can't be Rodney."

I laughed, but it was short and bitter. I knew he wasn't Rodney, God, knew it more than anyone else. He shook his head, "No – it's not like that. I never meant to be a replacement."

Looking at him, sitting there, with his hands twisting within each other, the words from that damn song came back to haunt me; _what have I become, my sweetest friend_. I was standing here, barking at Zelenka, and making him tear himself apart over my supposed expectations.

"Damn it," I swore. "It's not you." I walked over to the desk, and leaned against it, being careful not to bump my arm. "You should know that."

His mouth pursed, and he agreed. "I do. But I need you to know that."

I'd known it, that was the problem. I'd known it too well. What he didn't get was why I hadn't wanted him on the team. I sighed, and rubbed at my eyes. "Doc, I didn't want you on my team because I have an aversion to seeing another scientist killed." I left off the heavy stuff – the 'I don't want to see your life drained till all that's left is a dried corpse'.

He nodded, and I thought he got it, till he asked. "Tell me, Colonel, if Rodney was given the choice to be on your team, all over again, would he say yes?"

"That's not fair," I protested. Rodney had liked going through the gate. He'd confessed to me one night not long into our missions, that for the first time in his life he truly felt like he was doing something.

"It is fair," he insisted. "Rodney was a big man – he knew the risks." Radek paused, and stared at me above the rims of his glasses. "As do I."

I groaned, because no, he didn't. He didn't know what was out there. It was one thing to sit in Atlantis, and hear the stories, read the mission reports – get a glimpse now and then. It was something else entirely when you held your dead friend's body, and knew everything was at an end.

"You might die out there," I said, because I couldn't say the other.

He shrugged. "I might die here."

I looked away, trying to hide the wry smile that his fearless response had elicited. He was right. Atlantis wasn't the safe haven that we'd thought initially. Zelenka had almost died once from a nanovirus. It was only when McKay hadn't died that we'd figured it out. And ironically, it'd been my actions that saved Zelenka, and Ford, and all the others infected.

"Resignation denied, Doc," I said, turning back to face him. "I'm afraid you're the only scientist I'm willing to have on my team." I shrugged apologetically. "Guess you're stuck with me."

For a minute, I thought he was going to turn me down. But then he grinned weakly, and stood. "I think some day I might regret this," he admitted. "Thank you."

I nodded. "You're welcome." As he moved to the door, I hoped to God neither of us regretted it. There was only one way I would, and that was if the day came where he died, and I lived, because I wasn't so sure I could pick myself up next time. Zelenka wasn't McKay, but in time, I figured he'd become a close friend, too. If I let him.

He left, and I turned to the empty room. "Rodney, see what you did – went and gave your scientists hero complexes."

I just hoped it wasn't the case of 'one good death deserves another'.

OoO

When Elizabeth came by later and said Radek was throwing a wake for Rodney, I stared for too long. A wake? We'd had a memorial, but that was formal, and quiet. I knew what Radek wanted to accomplish; a rip roaring party, one to truly celebrate the brash, arrogant man that McKay had been. She got up to leave, and I called without looking at her, "Stay."

She stopped.

I didn't want her to leave. I'd been alone for so long; I wanted to tell her what had happened in the cell, wanted to find out if Teyla was really helping Ronon cope like she'd promised. I wanted to find out if Lorne was talking to Kate like he'd promised me. I wanted a friend, again.

But instead, I raised my face to meet hers, and gestured at the chair. "Tell me what's happening," I asked, giving her an excuse to stay under false pretenses.

The road to normal was as long and pitted as the fall from it, even more so, if anyone was being honest. It's easy to fall. It's a lot harder to pick yourself up and continue on. I'd said a lot of things I shouldn't have, and pushed away a lot of people that had tried to help after that mission. Elizabeth was one that I'd pushed away the most. She'd assigned that mission. On her orders, we'd walked through that gate, and while logic told me she wasn't to blame, the part of me that had died along with McKay wouldn't listen to logic. I supposed I'd been blaming everyone else, but no one half as much as I blamed me.

"The city misses you, John," she said, opening up to my invitation. Shed sat, and with hands settling on her knees, she began to brief me on the latest gossip and reports.


	10. Chapter 10

**Chapter Ten**

Mingling with the crowd was never my thing. I'd agreed to attend the wake, but now, looking around at the faces, I regretted it. My sling was gone, a hard plaster cast from just above my elbow down to my fingers in its place. The bruises had faded to sickly yellows and greens. Still, eyes kept finding me, and lingering too long.

I saw Radek gesturing in what looked to be a retelling of his close call with the Moose Beast, as the animal had been dubbed. The size was right, but that thing had had teeth. Fangs that were far from a moose's tooth. I'd been lucky that Teyla had been as fast acting as she was, otherwise I'd be minus a few chunks of me. I was also a little ashamed because part of me had wanted it. I might be admitting it to myself, but I hadn't quite gotten there with Kate. I'd assured her I wasn't a suicide risk, and she'd accepted that. Ronon had played his part well, also, because he'd gotten the Kate Heightmeyer stamp of 'sane', too.

"Colonel – join us," called Teyla.

She was sipping from a glass of what looked like champagne, talking animatedly with Beckett and Ronon. I waved with my good arm, and called back, "Just a minute." I had something to do first.

Pushing through clusters of people, I walked up behind Radek. "Doc," I greeted.

Zelenka turned to face me, his smile faltering slightly. Our first mission together had been anything less than a resounding success. "Colonel," he said politely. "How is your arm?"

I shrugged. "Healing." I pulled him from the circle of scientists and leaned in to say, "Can you excuse us for a few." Before Zelenka could ask what I was doing, I tugged him by his uniform jacket to where Teyla and Ronon were.

Carson's smile was full of warmth. He'd now seen me at every worst condition imaginable, and he still cared, was still going to be a friend to pick me up when I fell, and I wasn't so naïve enough to believe that I didn't have a few more ahead of me. Ronon and Teyla scooted to make room for Radek. "Doc here was retelling our last mission," I explained, smiling. "I think we ought to tell him about where we're going when my cast comes off."

Radek's uncertainty bled away a little, and he glanced from face to face, questioning with his look. "Is it full of Moose Beasts?" he asked.

Ronon snorted. "Worse," he said.

"What could be worse than those behemoth things?"

Teyla sipped her drink, and smiled softly. "I believe Colonel Sheppard referred to them as…dinosaurs?"

Stunned was a good description of Radek's face, and he started coughing on his drink. Beckett slapped his back hard. "Radek – they're pulling your leg, lad."

Now it was my turn to laugh. I was surprised at how rusty it felt – and I made an excuse to go get another drink, while Teyla tried to explain that we weren't joking. The trip was scheduled for four weeks from now, Beckett's estimate for when I'd have my cast off, and we were going to T-Rex World, as it'd been dubbed. We'd found it when the frantic search for a new alpha site had begun, and a recent discovery in the database had mentioned such a world as a possible location of a ZPM. But this time we were taking a Jumper.

This was a hard place to be. It was hard smiling, and including Radek, and talking to everyone, but I was doing it because I had to. Not only did I owe McKay, it was kind of crappy skipping out on your best friend's wake, but also, I knew I was close to being taken off duty and handed over to Kate unless I started showing progress. No one had said as much, but after my breakdown with Beckett, a lot of people had been checking on me. Teyla, Elizabeth, Carson and Kate, mostly. Lorne had dropped in and we'd had that conversation.

I hoped I was fooling everyone. I still felt hollow inside. There wasn't any 'recovery' taking place yet, except the fact that the nightmares weren't ruining me anymore. I could sleep, eat, do all the things that on the surface seemed normal. But I still woke up wanting to talk to McKay, and I went to bed whispering good night to someone who could never hear it.

A restlessness tagged my feet, and I spent a lot of the party wandering away from people before they could corner me. A growing realization was starting to rise up inside, and I thought maybe I could escape it with activity. When I noticed Beckett watching me, I found an excuse to leave early, and headed to my quarters. Sometimes personal revelations were just that. Personal. In the hallway, I paused. On a clear night like tonight, I would have rather gone out on the balcony, but there were too many people wandering around the command deck and balcony. Back to my room, then.

I walked in, surprised at the relief of being along again. I'd drank a little too freely at the wake, and it hadn't helped me any with making my decision. I slipped out of my jacket, and tossed it onto the bed.

"Finally!" exclaimed McKay, jumping to the side so the jacket didn't go through him. It always creeped him out when that happened. "Do you have any idea how boring it is, sitting here, waiting for you to come back." Rodney walked up to John, and peered into his face. "Have you been drinking?" he asked sharply. "Jesus – you have! I can't believe this! I'm stuck in this room, trying to be here for you, and you're off having a party."

I paused, and turned around – I thought I'd heard something in my room. Atlantis was a scary place at night, full of sounds that no one could ever catalog. With everyone at the wake, it was quiet back here in the quarter's wing. "Look at me, afraid of the air recycler's," I grimaced. "Next thing you know I'll start believing in ghosts." Disgusted, I turned on my small lamp, and pulled out the chair from the desk.

Rodney waggled his hands in front of Sheppard's face. "Woooooo woooooo!" He snorted. "If only – for over a month I've been trying to talk to you and tonight you finally seem to sense something, and they tell me I have to leave." He rolled his eyes, and threw himself against the wall. "That's my kind of luck. Sucked dry by a Wraith, allowed to spend extra time saying my farewells, only to get nowhere until my time is up. Jesus, I need a new job." When McKay realized he was getting a new job – a new something, he frowned, and walked around Sheppard, sticking his hands through the computer screen and trying to disrupt the electronics enough to create a signal. He didn't know why he bothered…it hadn't worked any of the other four hundred odd times.

Sitting down, I stared at the computer screen that was scrolling steadily with a cascading screensaver of binary numbers. Rodney had set it up for me when he'd caught my lame bouncing toaster one. "I miss you, McKay," I admitted, talking to the wall. I breathed deep. "More than even I would've figured." I don't know when I started talking to him after – the first week, even while drugged to the gills. I think that's when. I remembered something about Ronon pinning me to the bed and shouting that McKay wasn't there. I could've sworn that I'd seen…stupid. It was just stupid, and not that kind of stupid – the real kind. It'd contributed to my week long stay in the Hotel Lorazepam.

Pulling his hands out of the screen, irritated, Rodney admitted, "Not as much as I miss you, hence, I'm still here." McKay frowned at Sheppard's back. "At least you've got everyone else to talk to."

"You would've enjoyed your wake," I said. Time was running out – I'd come to a decision, and I knew I had to follow through. "Lot's of booze, women, and Radek agreed that you were the most brilliant scientist he'd ever met." Radek had a few too many drinks, also. Hell, most everyone had. I leaned forward. The picture on my desk was face down, and I lifted it, staring at the familiar faces; smiling, full of laughter and life. "I couldn't do it, you know – and I still haven't been able to figure out if I'd do it any differently."

Rodney sighed, and sat on the bed. "I know you won't believe me, but I couldn't have done it either." He frowned at his fingernails, and held his hand out, inspecting his cuticles. "I didn't know it was possible to get dry cuticles when you were dead – Radek should've said that, it's the truth." He dropped his hand. "At least you were at my wake, and not just any old party – my time's running short and it'd really suck if I missed saying good bye because you were out living it up, but my wake – always exceptions."

I set the picture down correctly on the desk, looked at it for a minute, then turned it just enough that it could be seen from my bed. The chair was hard against my back, and my arm was hurting tonight. Maybe a storm was moving in – didn't matter, the pain gave me something to focus on.

McKay watched as John moved the picture frame, and narrowed his eyes suspiciously. "You wouldn't have. If you'd accept that there was no other way for it to end, you'd get over this a lot quicker. In the time I've been with you, all I've seen is 'fall apart here, fall apart there'…what's going to happen when I'm gone?" His face twisted. "I mean, gone gone, not gone as in still here gone."

I stood up, and walked to the bathroom, filling my cup with some water. Beckett had taken me off the pain meds, but he'd given me some Motrin for when it got really bad. I chugged it, swallowing the pill in one gulp. Rodney would've lectured me about keeping the sling on, taking my pills, staying up late, drinking too much – I always thought it was ironic. He lectured me endlessly, and then stayed up all night sucking down cup of coffee after cup of coffee.

McKay watched him, frowning. "You should be careful; you might choke."

The water glass now empty, I headed back to the bed, and sat by the pillow, shivering as a breeze blew across my skin. The t-shirt was the only thing that I could wear because of the cast. I avoided my uniform jacket whenever I could. I had to wear it with the one sleeve empty and draped over my shoulder. I felt like some bad imitation of Zorro every time.

"I can't take it anymore," I whispered. "Rodney – I've got to say good bye, and I don't know if I can." This was it. I think deep down I'd realized this day was coming, but I'd fought against it as long as I could.

"Yeah, tell me about it." McKay sat next to Sheppard. "Limbo isn't supposed to last this long, and I'm getting bitched at." He cocked his head, a finger to his chin. "Did I say that already? I think I did – oh my God, I'm forgetting things already…"

Endings sucked. I had come to realize that this conversing with an imaginary McKay was a tool I'd been using as a crutch, and it had to go. With it, I could never truly accept that Rodney was gone. If I missed him, I found a reason to escape somewhere private, and told him everything I needed to. I knew some people did it when they lost loved ones, and it worked for them, but I was having a hard time moving on, and I needed to. The only problem with knowing is that doing is often a lot harder.

"You better reserve a spot for me," I said hoarsely. "The rate we're going in this part of the galaxy, it won't be long, anyway."

"Jesus, Sheppard, and you accused me of being a pessimist," swore McKay. The light bathed his face, and he turned up towards it, glaring. "Fine – fine, five minutes, that's all I'm asking. Five more minutes – in the span of eternity, it's not so much!"

"Five minutes," I said. "That's all I would've needed to tell that bitch everything; Earth, Atlantis, hell – my life story. Five fucking minutes. That's not so much, and I wouldn't be sitting here talking to thin air." I'd be sitting here talking to McKay.

McKay stood, and looked at Sheppard, his face falling. "Tell Jeannie I died saving the world." He laughed when he realized, that was exactly what'd happened. "I can't believe it, I really did."

There were so many things I wanted to say to Rodney before I shut that door for good. How much he meant to me, how much I'd learned from him. But all I could say was, "Good bye, McKay."

The light brightened insistently, and McKay huffed. "I'm coming – damn impatient afterlife people." He turned back to look at Sheppard. With a crooked smile, he patted John on the back. "It's not good bye, you know the cliché - 'see you later'." He paused before adding, "And that had better be much later."

You know that feeling, the one where the hairs on back of your neck stand up, and you feel like someone is watching you? I felt it now, and even though I'd pulled the blanket around my shoulders, I shivered. The impulse to keep talking to Rodney was overwhelming, but I didn't. I'd said my good bye's and now it was time to hold to it. I'd made some promises, and if I was going to keep them, I needed to move on.

As I stretched on the bed, and let my eyes close, I pictured Rodney again, but this time, I replaced the dying memory with the first time we'd met. The one where he'd ran up to me and asked, "What did you do?" That's how I wanted to remember McKay. With the universe at his feet, and no one realizing what adventure waited on the other side.

**The End.**

_The waves now have a redder glow --  
The hours are breathing faint and low --  
And when, amid no earthly moans,  
Down, down that town shall settle hence,  
Hell, rising from a thousand thrones,  
Shall do it reverence._

Edgar Allan Poe

AN: Thank you Shelly, for challenging me, thank you Kylen for pushing me, and thank you nebbyjen and Linzi for helping me catch those nagging, annoying mistakes. I've tweaked a bit since they saw it, so all remaining mistakes are mine, naturally. If I've made you cry, I both apologize and celebrate.


End file.
